Neil Hughes
Together, Apple and Samsung accounted for 103 percent of mobile phone profits in 2012, a number made possible because of losses incurred by rivals Motorola, Sony and Nokia.
Apple took a commanding 69 percent of handset profits last year, more than doubling the next closest company, Samsung, which accounted for 34 percent. Together, that gave the two companies more than 100 percent of the industry's profits, according to research released on Wednesday by Canaccord Genuity.
That's because Nokia's losses gave it a negative 2 percent of industry profits, while Motorola and Sony Ericsson both accounted for minus 1 percent.
In fact, the only other company to see any positive in 2012 was HTC, which accounted for just 1 percent of industry profits. Both BlackBerry and LG are estimated to have broken even.
Apple's share of the industry's profits were even greater in the fourth quarter of 2012, when the company launched its latest flagship handset, the iPhone 5. In the holiday quarter, Apple took 72 percent of the industry profits, while Samsung's share slid to 29 percent.
With few major catalysts on the horizon, analyst Michael Walkley of Canaccord Genuity expects Apple and Samsung will retain their dominant shares of the handset industry for the foreseeable future.
Amber Neely
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Wesley Hilliard
Bon Adamson
Thomas Sibilly
181 Comments
I just don't get that. They don't magically have more money than they do have, so whatever actual profits (positive money going into the hands of the companies) exist, THAT is the 100%.
AAPL will drop as it shows Apple profitability may have peaked .
Obviously, Apple is doomed. Wall Street's response to Apple's success has been baffling. The stock did start to rise today after Apple announced its 25 billionth iTunes download. So the market is excited about Apple selling lots of stuff on iTunes - even though Apple acknowledges that they make little, if any, profit on iTunes. But hardware success apparently doesn't impress Wall Street. Go figure.
They had 100% of the profits and 0% of the losses. The headline is stupid.
It would have been helpful if the story had indicated how these guys are able to arrive at Samsung's "mobile device" numbers, considering that Samsung's reporting segment is defined as "IT and Mobile" -- in other words, it includes all sorts of IT and telecom-related equipment and software services (including PCs).
In other words, are Samsung's numbers likely inflated?